Rita Felski

(1994)
William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor
Literary Theory and Aesthetics, Feminist Theory, Modernity and Postmodernity, Cultural Studies
Editor, New Literary History

Degrees

Ph.D. Monash University, 1987
M.A. Monash University, 1982
B.A. Cambridge University, 1979

Interests

My current research centers on questions of method and interpretation. My recent manifesto "The Uses of Literature" is a neo-phenomenological investigation of aesthetic experiences such as recognition, enchantment, and shock. My work in progress is on the hermeneutics of suspicion. I also have longstanding interests in feminist theory, modernity and postmodernity, genre (especially tragedy), and cultural studies.

Books

  • Uses of Literature (Blackwell's, 2008).
  • Rethinking Tragedy, editor (Johns Hopkins, 2007).
  • Literature After Feminism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
  • Doing Time: Feminist Theory and Postmodern Culture (New York: New York University Press, 2000).
  • The Gender of Modernity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995). Korean translation, 1998.
  • Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989).

Recent Articles

  • "Everyday Aesthetics," minnesota review, forthcoming.
  • "Remember the Reader," The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 17 2008.
  • “From Literary Theory to Critical Method,” Profession, 2008, pp. 108-116.
  • “Cultural Studies,” The Routledge Social Science Encyclopedia, 2008.
  • “Tragic Women,” in Moderne Begreifen: Zur Paradoxie eines sozio-aesthetischen Deutungsmusters, ed. Christine Magerski et al  (Deutsche Universitätsverlag, 2007).
  • “Object Relations,” Contemporary Women’s Writing, 2007
  • “‘Because it is Beautiful’: New Feminist Perspectives on Beauty,” Feminist Theory, 7, 2 (2006)
  • "Redescriptions of Female Masochism," Minnesota Review, 2005.
  • "Modernist Studies and Cultural Studies," Modernism/Modernity, 2004.
  • "Introduction," New Literary History, special issue on tragedy, 2004.
  • "The Role of Aesthetics in Cultural Studies," Aesthetics and Cultural Studies, ed. Michael Bérubé, Blackwell's, 2004.
  • "Introduction," New Literary History, special issue on "Everyday Life," 2002.
  • "Afterword," Women and Modernity: Renegotiating the Public Sphere 1880-1930, ed. Ann Ardis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002).
  • "Telling Time in Feminist Theory," Tulsa Journal of Women's Studies, 21, 1 (2002): 21-27.
  • "Why Academics Don't Study the Lower Middle Class," Chronicle of Higher Education, January 25, 2002.
  • "Med Ratt Att Grata" (Tragic Women), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), March 21, 2001.
  • "Von der Postmoderne zur Moderne," (From the Postmodern to the Modern) Transit (Vienna), 19 (2000): 44-62.
  • "Feminist Futures," International Journal of Cultural Studies, 3 (2000): 238-245.
  • "Being Rational, Telling Stories," Feminist Theory, 2 (2000): 225-229.
  • "Nothing to Declare: Identity, Shame and the Lower Middle Class," PMLA, 115, 1 (2000): 1-25.
  • "The Invention of Everyday Life," New Formations, 39 (1999/2000), . 15-31.
  • "Why Those Who Dismiss Cultural Studies Don't Know What They're Talking About," The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 23, 1999.
  • "Images of the Intellectual: From Philosophy to Cultural Studies," Continuum 12, 2 (1998): 157-171.
  • Introduction to Sexology and Culture: Labelling Bodies and Desires, 1890-1940, ed. Lucy Bland and Laura Doan, University of Chicago Press and Polity Press, 1998.
  • "Feminist Aesthetics," in The International Encyclopaedia of Aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
  • "The Doxa of Difference," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 23, 1 (Fall 1997): 1-23.
  • Judith Krantz, Author of 'The Cultural Logics of Late Capitalism'," Woman: A Cultural Review, vol 8, no. 2 (1997): 129-142.

Online Publications

Conference Presentations and Invited Lectures

  • Presidential Forum, MLA, December 2008 (KEYNOTE)
  • English Department and Women’s Studies, Wake Forest, February 2008
  • South Central Modern Language Association, November 2007 (KEYNOTE)
  • English Department, Florida State, October 2007
  • English Department, Colorado College, September 2007
  • English Department, Dartmouth College, April 2007
  • Cultural Studies Program, George Mason University, February 2007
  • Panel on “Literary studies in the Public Sphere,” MLA, December 2006
  • Conference on Transnational Gender Research, U of Minnesota, November 2006 (KEYNOTE)
  • Gender and Modernism Symposium, University of Pennsylvania, October 2006
  • Departments of Art History and English, Uppsala University, April 2006
  • ACLA conference, Princeton University March 2006
  • Philosophy Department, York University, November 2005
  • English Department, Edinburgh University, September 2005
  • English Department, McMaster University, February 2005
  • Panel on Aesthetics and Cultural Studies, MLA, Dec 2004
  • Monroe Beardsley Lecture in Aesthetics, Temple University, April 2004 (KEYNOTE)
  • Masomania (conference on masochism), Neue Galerie, Graz, May 2003
  • English Department, Yale University, March 2003
  • English Department, University of Washington, March 2003
  • Modernist Studies Association Conference, October 2002 (KEYNOTE)
  • European Modernism Conference, April 2002 (KEYNOTE)
  • English Department, University of Michigan, March 2002
  • English and Spanish Departments, Georgetown University, September 2001
  • English Department, University of Pittsburgh, April 2001
  • Panel on “Tragic Women,” Narrative Conference, Houston March 2001
  • Sociology Department, University of Lund, Sweden, March 2000
  • Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, Austria, May 2000
  • Panel on “Women and Time,” MLA, Washington, December  2000
  • Panel on “Redefining Modernity,” New Modernisms Conference, Penn State, October 1999
  • English and History Departments, Oregon State University, April 1998
  • English Department, Reed College, April 1998
  • "The Space Between" Conference, SUNY New Palz, November 1998 (KEYNOTE)

Professional Activities

  • Editorial Board, Criticism
  • Editorial Board, Modern Fiction Studies
  • Editorial Board, The International Journal of Cultural Studies
  • Editorial Board, Modernism/Modernity
  • Editorial Board, Echo: A Music-Centered Journal

Honors

  • Fellowship, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University 1989-1990
  • Fellowship, Commonwealth Center for Literary and Cultural Change, University of Virginia. 1991
  • Australian Research Council Major Grant 1993
  • George A. Miller Visiting Professor, University of Illinois, 1998
  • Research Fellow, Institut fur die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, Vienna 2000
  • William Parker Riley Prize, best article in PMLA.